Archive: Barney Google & Snuffy Smith

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Momma, 9/8/11

The best installments of Momma (and by “best” I mean “most horrifying and unsettling”) are the ones where Momma feels compelled to meddle in the sexual lives of her children. Today we get a classic Momma euphemism (“I hope your vagina isn’t becoming too … involved, shall we say … with that Herby fellow’s penis”), which is always fun; but much better is the final panel, in which MaryLou, having suppressed the natural expression of her sexual feelings just long enough to get out the door, is convulsed by a full-body lust-spasm.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/8/11

Snuffy Smith has absolutely no achievements of note: he can’t hold down a steady job, he’s a notorious criminal, he survives only due to his poaching and petty theft, and he can’t even be bothered to help his wife with basic household chores. This all no doubt takes a toll on his self-esteem, so he’s looking for whatever glory he can get; unfortunately, the best he can do is try to claim (based on a vague similarity of his name to a common slang term) proprietary rights over the sort of low-level respiratory infection that is endemic to Hootin’ Holler due to the populace’s poor hygiene, which in turn stems from their refusal to acknowledge that flatlanders’ fancy germ theory of disease.

Gasoline Alley, 9/8/11

At long last, Skeezix and Nina have worked out their washer-dryer situation and are taking their long-awaited vacation! Day one: Some dude invites Sheezix to take a dump on his porch.

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Judge Parker, 9/4/11

Oh, hey, have the mega-rich of Judge Parker stumbled into yet another opportunity to maximize their already unspeakably hegemonic spending power? Sure looks that way! I look forward to a solid week of this oddly bearded man simpering and groveling, hoping that the sudden appearance of some wealthy people who want to buy a stupid RV on a whim will keep the business solvent and his health care benefits in place for another few days.

Family Circus, 9/4/11

Wow, Billy sure is looking ludicrously smug as he thinks fun thoughts about the summer just passed. You’d think that he’d be sad about the coming school year, but perhaps he’s looking forward to regaling his unwilling classmates with smug tales about how much better his summer was than theirs.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/4/11

Miss Prunelly is in such an ecstasy over the gift offerings she’s receiving from a long line of worshipful students that she isn’t even bothering to correct their nonstandard use of “brung.” It’s sad, really.

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 8/28/11

There are a number of things that I find dubious and hilarious about today’s Slylock Fox mystery, chief among them being Slylock’s withering and unwarranted contempt for Count Weirdly’s mad science skills. “Even if Weirdly did have a working time machine”? You mean, like the working time machine you yourself used to journey back to the Cretaceous Era? Oh, sure, when you get a jones to go look at some dinosaurs, you’re all like, “Hey, Count, we’re buds, right,” but when other people are around it’s more like “Whatever, you’re guilty and probably your time machine doesn’t even work, pssht.” What a user!

Plus, with Weirdly in command of a device that can interfere with the very timeline, Slylock’s smug array of historical facts are completely meaningless. Sure, Thomas Edison didn’t make the world’s first phone call … in our universe. But what would keep the crazed Count from traveling to the 1870s and feeding young Thomas Edison information about telephony, to ensure that this important invention would be born here in USA America and not cooked up by some beardy Scot lurking on Canadian soil?

More to the point, seeing as Weirdly is at the controls of a time machine, he automatically has a perfect alibi for everything. He could have easily burned Farmer Bear’s crops 10 minutes ago, spent a leisurely year or so in the 1700s hanging out with Voltaire, then returned to the present instant. Basically, he now has unstoppable powers and Slylock’s ratiocinating will be wholly incapable of stopping him, so we should all adjust ourselves to life on Planet Weirdly pretty quickly if we know what’s good for us.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/28/11

Seeing that Hootin’ Holler is completely cut off from the mainstream of American cultural and economic life, I’m saddened to discover that it’s somehow still been thoroughly infiltrated by the fad diet industry. Still, I kind of like the way Loweezy invites poor Lureen inside to break the news to her in private that there’s no quick route to weight loss. She even takes care to close the door behind her, something that probably takes a bit of effort, as the first panel in the second row clearly indicates that it’s not attached to the house via any sort of fancy flatlander hinges.

Judge Parker, 8/28/11

Ha ha, sure, Sam and Abbey will just head out on a journey in their luxurious Sex Winnebago, leaving the groundskeeper or whoever in charge of their 14-year-old daughter, who’s announced her plan to win some pasty-face boy’s love by any means necessary. What could possibly go wrong?